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File description: Front end alignment Your name: (optional) Roland Wilhelmy
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Tere are three factors in front end alignment: camber, caster, and
toe. Often toe is the only variable that is easy to modify, with
camber being the next most modifyable. With toe (usually toe in,
rather than toe out) you can get very close with a piece of string, a
magic marker and a ruler. A helper or some tape is also useful. Toe
in means the wheels are pigeon toed; toe out means that the front
wheels are trying to pull the car apart :-) You want to measure the
distance between inside rims at "3 and 9 o'clock", in other words
straight ahead of the centerline of the front axle and straight behind
it. You need to set your front wheels straight, first, and have room
to roll the car forward or backward until the same two points on the
rim move from 3 to 9 oclock (or vice versa) on both wheels. The magic
marker is for marking the spot on each rim that you are going to use
for measuring points, and also to mark the two points on the string
where the rim measurements hit. The distance between the
measurements, measured by the ruler, is either toe in or toe out
depending on what you got. Usually a little bit of toe in gives the
best handling and tire wear. You can do the simple trigonometry to
figure out the angle involved if you want to: arctangent of (toe
divided by the rim diameter). Or use arcsin of the same number; at
small angles the answer is about the same. You may have to convert
from fractions of a degree to minutes and seconds.
Degrees times 60 equals minutes, and minutes times 60 equals seconds
of arc. So 20 minutes of arc is 1/3 of a degree.